Michael Heseltine is a British businessman and politician, best known for serving as a British member of parliament (MP) for close to 4 decades, from 1966 to 2001. He belonged to an upper-middle-class family. Following his high-school graduation, he joined the Pembroke College of the University of Oxford, from where he graduated in philosophy, politics, and economics. Despite his growing interest in politics, he chose to enter the world of business following his college graduation. He started working in the real-estate business, making the best out of the Great London property boom of the late 1950s. He entered active politics in the mid-1960s and was elected as an MP from Tavistock for two terms consecutively. In 1974, he contested from Henley and stayed as the MP from the constituency until 2001. Meanwhile, he also served in many cabinet positions, such as the secretary of state for the environment and the secretary of state for defense, especially under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He was known as a charismatic figure in the party but was unable to secure the leadership of the Conservative Party in the 1990s. He ended up becoming the deputy prime minister and the first secretary of state in the mid-1990s.